E 469 
.8 
.D68 
Copy 1 




^ 



/^T 



E 469 
.8 
.068 ai ..... ..... l\.^ (31 ..v^..r^^.^ (^l* 

Copy 



1 §aw m i\u %\\m\mi War. 



THE following is the main portion of a letter addressed \>j 
Brif^adier-General Neal Dow, of the Federal army, (the origi- 
nator of the celebrated " Maine Liquor Law," and late Mayor of 
Portland,) to Mr. Barker, of Manchester. The letter is dated from 
Fort St. Philip, Mississippi River, September 13, 1862, The writer 
says : — 

The inhabitants up and down the river for fifty or sixty miles come 
in great number.s to take the oath of allegiance, and all declare that 
they abhor the rebellion and were always opposed to it, though they 
were forced to take an oath of allegiance to the rebel government. 
I explain to them that it is a voluntary matter so far as our govern- 
ment is concerned. Many of these persons are free negroes of pro- 
perty, bright, intelligent, and active men, who understand perfectly 
that this dreadful war is for the benefit of their race ; and they assure 
me that when the President's proclamation shall come, offering free- 
dom to all the slaves, they will flock to our standard en masse. Such 
a proclamation will come. 

I have at these two forts about 500 slaves (that were), but who are 
now free. The masters now frequently send off their slaves as n« 
longer of any value. Nowhere within reach of our troops will they 
work for or obey their masters ; and for seventy miles between here 
and New Orleans slavery is practically extinguished. In some casea 
the masters hire their servants. Several masters have come here 
and asked permission to hire the servants who are at the forts to go 
and help get in their crops. Of course I consent, and the servants 
go very willingly. Some plantations with large crops on the ground 
have no hands at all to harvest them. This rebellion, commenced by 
a few leading and unscrupulous politicians, in the interests of slavery 
to extend and perpetuate it, will most certainly result in the over- 
throw of the institution. The time is now very near wh(n the Pi"c- 
eident will be constrained to proclaim universal emancipation. 

At the taking of these formidable forts and of New Orleans I fully 
expected the war would be virtually ended ; for I entertained no doubt; 
that Richmond would be captured. So far from that, however, \^ 
the fact, that our grand army of the Potomac — abundantly able to 
accomplish the work, if well commanded — has been compelled to 
withdraw, after a series of desperate battles, in which the losses oa 
both sides were very heavj'. 

The President has called for GOO, 000 more men, who will all bo :.•» 



' ■ ' 6 "^ 
the field by the middle of October. The great difficulty with us has 
been, that we have been trying to carry on the war so as not to ofl'end 
the rebels too much, while they have been desperately in earnest. Our 
policy will change — has changed. 

The politicians and statesmen cannot see that this war is a dealing 
with us by Providence, on account of our great and dreadful national 
ein of slavery, and that we cannot have peace until we repent and 
abandon it. Northern people have flattered themselves that the South 
alone was responsible for the sin and shame of slavery, whereas our 
complicity in it has been open and constant. I do not mean to say 
that this is true of all Northern people — far from it. There have 
always been large numbers who have deplored the existence of slave- 
ry in the country, and have anxiously desired its overthrow. This 
class has rapidly increased in three or four years, until, at the last 
presidential election, the idea of opposition to it triumphed at tho 
ballot-box. And now God's command is to let his poor and oppressed 
children go — and we must and will. Until then we can have no peace, 
even if the country should be severed ia its nationality. Slavery 
abolished and we should have a glorious country, with all its vast 
interests harmonious, and the people perfectly contented and happy. 
Slavery preserved and with a restored Union we could not possibly 
have peace among ourselves. Slave institutions are essentially and 
necessarily despotic, and there can never be concord between them 
and freedom. The conflict between slave and free institutions exist- 
ing in the same country must and will be bitter and irrepressible. 
In America they have at last come face to face, with swords drawn, 
and one or the other must die. Which it will be admits of no doubt 
among us ; for we of the Free States are resolved as one man to fight 
now the last battle with this gigantic iniquity, at whatever cost of 
treasure and blood. 

Our territory is so situated geographically, that we cannot and will 
not, in any event, consent to any such severance of our domain as the 
rebels desire. That would put into the keeping of a foreign and 
bitterly hostile power the absolute control of the trade and commerca 
of part of our territory, almost as large as all Europe, that now seeki 
the ocean through the mouths of the Mississippi and other rivers 
which are within slave territory. Some day the Pacific States will 
of themselves form a mighty independant nation — but the Southern 
States of this Union must continue to share our fortunes, as apolitical, 
social, and industrial necessity to us. It surprises us that intelligent 
Englishmen should think it better and Aviser that we should con- 
sent to a dissolution of the Union. The vast waters of the Ohio, 
Mississippi, Missouri, and other rivers, embracing in the Free States, 
and territories a steamboat navigation of more than 10,000 miles, 
find their way to the ocean for 1,500 miles through slave territory. 
Can we possibly consent that the commerce of that vast region shall 
depend for its existence upon the pleasure of a foreign, despotic, and 
bitterly hostile government ? "Would England do it ? Did England 
acquiesce in the earnest desire of the Indian princes and people to 
retiunie their nationality ? Did any Englishman propose a con- 

U i ■'/ -1 ( 

"OS" 



3 /f/ 

cession of that point P If Cumberland and Northumberland, and 
Scotchmen on the North of the Tyne and Tweed should rebel, would 
Englishmen and the Government consent to a separation P And if 
not, why not, if the opinion is that we ought to yield to the demands 
of the rebels P There have been rebellions innumerable almost in 
Great Britain and Ireland, but in no one of them did the Government 
or the loyal people acquiesce, except at the end of an uusueucssful 
struggle to suppress it. Why, then, is it thought that we should 
consent to the dismemberment of our territory, involving, as it would, 
incalculable evils to the social, political, and industrial interest of 
the Free States. 

" We understand and lament that this war of ours inflicts great 
inconveniences .and even sufferings upon some European nations ; 
and our admiration is excited at the patient and noble manner in 
which the English workmen bear their privations. But perhaps you 
will be surprised if I say that this rebellion would be already broken 
down, and the struggle ended, but for the activity, skill, and persistence 
of ceriain Englishmen, who resort to every expedient known to skilful 
navigators to evade the blockade of rebel ports, and supply the 
insurgents with arms and munitions of war. Yet such is the convic- 
tion of our people. The rebels have had no supplies of such 
necessaries for continuing their struggle except from Great Britain, 
80 far as we know or have heard. There have been at one time in 
the port of Nassau, near our coast, sixteen English vessels, mostly 
fast steamers, laden with contraband articles, waiting an opportunity 
to run the blockade. If the Que'en's proclamation were enforced 
properlr, all this trade would cease, and English working people 
would the sooner be relieved from their distress. When W^xlker and 
his band of desperadoes contemplated their raid into Nicaragua, our 
President seized their vessels and supplies, and in the case of one 
that evaded the vigilance of our authorities, a ship of war was sent 
out after her, and she was captured. It was the way in which our 
Piesident enforced his own proclamation of neutrality. 

"As to the present actual condition of the war I can tell you 
nothing, for you get all the news before it reaches me. The Richmond 
campaign has resulted in nothing. But the whole thing, under a 
new leader, will be undertaken de novo. When our new iron-clad 
vessels shall be out — which will be within two months — I confidently 
expect the capture of Charleston and Savannah. Mobile is being 
bombarded while I write — or rather Fort Morgan, which is its only 
defence. I cannot predict the result, but think our fleet will be 
successful, as the work is entirely barbette. With Mobile, Charleston, 
and Savannah in our hands, the rebels will be cut otF from their 
entire coast. This war is enormously costly to the nation in trea- 
sure and blood, but its result in the overthrow of slavery will more 
than compensate us for all our losses and sacrifice.-', and the world 
for its inconveniences and suiferings in consequence of it. Our 
people bear pat'.ently — nay, joyfully, the burden of the war ; be- 
cause they think it the avenue through which four millions of 
iguoruut and down-trodden slaves are to march forth from their 



013 701 172 4 



f»riaon-house into the glorious sunshir LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
igious liberty. Illlllilllllillililllilliili 

" I have remarked that slavery is al 
the District of Columbia and all our v; 
the slave States by the force of ev* 
a merchantable commodity, finding alw 
demand as before the vrar. They are 
commercial value, and cannot be sold at any price. These forts at 
which I am stationed are in the State of Louisiana, where there are 
■vast sugar estates, the owners of which have made great fortunes 
within a few years, and among whom negroes were sold at a higher 
price than in any other State. The New Orleans slavemarkets were 
the highest in the country for first-class field hands. And it is here, 
in Louisiana, that slaves are now so valueless to their masters that 
they are turned off and told to shift for themselves. Such come to 
me, and, authorised by orders from the department, I give them a 
free pass to go where they choose, without let or hindrance- Some 
masters have come to the forts and arranged with their former slaves 
to go back for wages, and help to get in the crops, and I always 
consent. That's the beginning of free labour in Louisiana, the most 
bigotted pro-slavery State in the Union, except South Carolina. 

" The newspapers of New Orleans are now discussing the advantages 
of free labour, and maintaining that cotton, rice, and sugar can be 
produced more cheaply by it than by slave labour. Such an intima- 
tion in any Southern press a year ago would have cost the editor his 
life probably at the hands of a mob, certainly the destruction of his 
office and all his property. 

" Let English friends, who are truly anti-slavery and friendly to our 
country, but who have feared the war would nut issue in benefit to 
the poor slave, have patience with us. 

"The disenthralment of an entire race, the overthrow of the social 
condition of a great people, the destruction of the entire industrial 
Bystem of eleven millions of men, in a territory ten times larges than 
Great Britain, is a work so mighty ihat our friends may have patience 
with us if we do not accomplish it in a jear. This work, mighty and 
glorious, will certainly be accomplished by this war; and our joy 
will be so great that our losses and bitter experiences in it will be 
regarded aa cheap for bO wonderful a result." 

" Most truly yours, 

"NBAL DOW." 



^ 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 701 172 4|^ 



